Ah, just saw the "other" post below........still doesn't solve all the badges and points that "wordpuzzle" has accumulated. I see that corruptness still abounds.

(Editor)

Sat, 15th Nov '08 10:15 AM

Okay. A simple question. In order for an account to stay alive, it must have activity. If not answering the TQOTDs to keep the account active, then how do you suggest we do it, and avoid the presumption of some secretive, sinister hidden agenda? We await your suggestion.

I have three sons that can make a simple Home PC do anything but fart. Isn't it strange the limitations we endure with such small problems here. I was just challenged to a Showdown an hour ago and I answered the question quickly and "Correct". I lost because the challenger answered in 5.9900 seconds. I was quick but Sploofus can't tell you how much you lost by. Now that's a Puzzle I'll never be able to solve.

I have a question. Just how often must a daily question be answered to keep an account active.? Puzzle authors were told they could take their own puzzles but if I am remembering and understnding correctly, they should "tank" them. Who says Wordpuzzle should answer the daily question or anyhing else correctly. Misery loves company and I want Wordpuzzle to not be fast or very smart like I often feel here. Points have aways beeno f no consequence to me as I can never be competive here- but they are extremely important to some. The badges always have mattered to me. Incidentally, not complaing about the question I received this am as it was in the Vocabulary category, correcty placed, and I answered correctly-imagine that_Linda

I knew this was going to happen as soon as I saw points accumulating in Wordpuzzle's account. It's a reasonable solution to a legitimate problem. Seriously, how much does Wordpuzzle answering TQOD's affect us? I do believe, however, that Wordpuzzle should not be competitive (i.e. wagering, showdowns and participating in WTHAI's, quizzes or wordpuzzles).

I don't see how it matters. Did we get up on the wrong side of the computer this morning?

I'm not really understanding the "active" thing, though. There are thousands of "members" who played once and were never seen again. How long does one have to be "inactive" before automatically erased from the membership. Just curious.

In another post the editor in question says that in the excitement of realizing that he/she knew the WTHAI forgot to log out of Wordpuzzle and log in under his/her member name. It's really that simple. We all know that members are editors and frankly I don't give a flying fig who they are, and am really glad I don't know, I just enjoy playing the games. I do not understand the paranoid thinking that fans the fire of who scores a few points. I look at the number of points most constant players have and wonder why in the heck does anyone care about a member/editor playing. If someone feels that an editor is not judging their entries fairly or someone thinks they know who the editors are and just don't like them then I'm sure we will all hear about it in a post. And do a few thousand points really mean that much? Guess I haven't found the place where I go to cash in points. Maybe if it bothers people so badly, then ask for a refund and don't play anymore. Sorry for the rant but why does it matter so much? I think maybe all the editors just need to quit and maybe Justin needs to shut the site down. Hope not because I really like to play, slow as I am and as few points as I have.

Bbear, think I asked that same question abou how often a daily question must be answered to keep an account "active". HMMM seems like only yesterday that Bill was taken to task via sarcasm for alluding to points as "stupid" or stinkin" or some such thing. Linda

I hereby offer up for auction all of my Sploofus points, badges, tokens, honors, etc. It will, of course, be up to the winner to figure out how to collect their winnings. I will retain possession of my account.

Okay Tuz, I need another couple billion to buy that new chrome-plated, stereophonic,turbocharged,automatic teleporter with the fur-lined gizz-wheel and multi-dimensional phase-splitter capable of multiple quantum-leap programming featuring touch-screen controls, Chick won't give my old one back.

(Editor)

Sat, 15th Nov '08 2:29 PM

We regret that in doing something novel and fun for the premium membership, because of a handful of questions idly answered and an accidental WTH guess, we are once again suspect. Of what, we are not informed. I'd like to note for the record that far from benefitting from the mistake of guessing the WTHAI while counting votes in the Wordpuzzle account, the editor lost out on 100,000 points. This is an action on a par in wrongdoing with posting to the wrong chat screen; neither clever nor corrupt. Wordpuzzle is not a "dual" account, it is a dummy account created for a temporary purpose, used jointly by the team of editors in charge of posting puzzles and counting votes. We will be deleting the Wordpuzzle account when the Platipuzz contest closes. We trust that will be sufficient to remove any impression of "corruption."

Editors are players too, always have been - this is not new. Most of us are good players and frequent contributors, which fed our original enthusiasm for the site and drew Justin's notice in the first place. If we couldn't play, many of us would soon lose interest in "all work and no play." Most of us love this place at least in part because we love the games. Justin assures us of the right to play, and to post as ourselves, when we agree to become editors. I for one would not have accepted the job had it required giving up the player side, or if I had not believed I could participate ethically on both sides. We are all conscious of the great trust Justin has placed in us, and of the scrutiny of our peers.

Many of us play with great pleasure, and some would choose playing over editing if it had to be one or the other. It might not be an easy task to put together enough qualified people who'd be willing to give up the player side to edit games and answer support tickets, nor do we see why we should, if only we are extended the same presumption of fair play that we extend to you, that any of us extend to the others. We ask that you give us the benefit of the doubt and trust that we do not abuse our positions to gain advantage in any game, that we diligently go beyond the extra mile to avoid it. If anything, our duties occupy enough of our time here to severely cut into whatever points we might be making if we spent the work time playing. We ask you to accept that we are an ethical group of decent players donating our time to help the site and everyone here as well and fairly as we are collectively able, because we believe in this community and care about its people - because we are *among* its people, and we don't want it any other way.

Yes, 1mks, they exist, until we can identify them and delete them. That is obviously not the case with Wordpuzzle. If you suspect someone of having multiple accounts, please report it via support ticket and we'll look into it most carefully.

Ok.. this is getting ridiculous. I know I'm not supposed to say whether I did or didn't submit a WP for the contest but I didn't, solely because I didn't get around to it and that is no one's fault but my own. I did, however, intend to participate in the next round.
Now, because a handful of people are taking issue with the editors needing to keep the voting account alive by answering a few tqod's, I can no longer participate.

We are all human, we all make mistakes, I can completely understand how that mistake was made in the heat of the moment. As does when I get a blue or gold screen in WR or WM's or I'm making a wager on a TQOD, when I see something in WTHAI that I recognise and no one else has yet, my heart rate elevates and I'm rushed when answering. I wouldn't be thinking, am I in the right account?

This is a FUN - TRIVIA website. Are we winning any money here? NO. I, for one, appreciated the extra twist on the WP's. Adding another dimension to them kept them interesting.

I am seriously flabbergasted that such a group of intelligent people are behaving in such a teenage girl, fatalistic manner about such a trivial issue and ruining it for the rest of us.

If it counts for anything editors, please reconsider removing the account. I'd like the contest to remain.

I know this post won't make me popular with the girls who like to yell "Cheater" but, the popular group was never that important to me, even AS a teenager.

Marsha, when you log in, Sploofus gets a copy of the address from which you logged in. Depending on the service you use, and other things like are you in a big city or the boondocks, etc., you can conflict with dozens of people who are also logging on through the same node. They can all be legitimate people who do not even know each other, or they can be family members who both have accounts and do not cheat, or they can be a nest of cheaters. The trick is figuring out how to sort them out...which is not always easy, or even possible without a lot of addition work. I am talking on the magnitude of all the editors stopping everything else for a few weeks/months and dedicating all of their time to ferreting out multiple accounts.

I would suggest that those of us who would like the contest to continue to submit a support ticket in favour of such. Feel free to submit against it. I would guess that more people want it to continue - with the Wordpuzzle account active, than not.

Linda.. discredit her claim?? .. they were merely trying to express how difficult it really is to determine if there are multiple accounts. Some people will just never be happy without some conspiracy theory or another. this is getting old - FAST.

Can we have a public forum for voting on WPs? Some would like it so they can tally up the votes to satisfy themselves that no cheating or favoritism is taking place when the winners are announced by an editor. But other will not like it because they won't want people seeing how they are rating the WPs.

OR, we could leave it as is and let those who think there's some conspiracy going on to write into Paranoia Magazine about this little site called Sploofus where you don't win anything real but the editors are definitely cheating.

Does anyone know how the "polling" function or "form" function works in software? I know Sploofus is customzied design, but in some website software you have a polling function that automatically calculates votes. A "form" is another way where you would click on a radial button (1, 2, 3 or 4) and the backend does an auto tally.

I'm trying to think of some way of doing this that doesn't require extra programming, tallies votes automatically and still keeps the voter anonymous.

The whole thread seems to have the implication that editors are doing something underhand. The initial booboo that seems to have caused the 'problem' was so transparently an accident that benefited nobody that anyone but a moron could see that Or so I thought.

How anyone could think that the contest was rigged is even more absurd. All the editors will no doubt see the marking -- if they wanted to. Unless they are all in it together (now THAT's a thought!)

All those who believe in the global conspiracy (along with the protocol of the Elders of Zion) raise your hands now.

(Editor)

Sat, 15th Nov '08 11:01 PM

OK - Let me share the editor side of the voting procedure. I know some of you will not believe me, but this is honestly what has been and is happening:

1. Platinum members sent their puzzles to their WP editors.
2. Editors forwarded each contest puzzle to one coordinating editor WITHOUT INCLUDING THE NAME OF THE AUTHOR.
3. Coordinating editor posted the contest WPs.
4. Players take the puzzles and send votes to Wordpuzzle.
5. A variety of editors sign in as Wordpuzzle and tally the votes, posting the tallies on the Editors Chat Board.
6. Other editors check out the math - addition, averaging, etc.
7. The only editor who knows who wrote any given puzzle is the original editor to whom that puzzle was forwarded. We each have been assigned approx. 10-12 platinum members, and not that many plats submitted puzzles. For example, only 5 of my plats wrote puzzles, so I only know the authors of 5 of the puzzles.

We bent over backwards to ensure that this would not be a popularity contest, and to make sure that the authors of the puzzles were known to as few as possible. I'll share that my personal puzzle has already aired - and not done particularly well, either. I'm sure not winning any prizes.

Just to clarify my post (in cast the last two posts were in reference to it.)
A prior post asked for suggestions on the process. I was trying to think of a way to make the tallying of votes easier on the editors and not so time and labor intensive.

Perhaps I should have started a new thread instead of posting on this one. I posted hoping someone had solution for an automatic calculation online rather than the labor intensive effort of counting and tracking every PM that goes to Wordpuzzle for two word puzzle contests daily - which seems like a labor intensive task to me.

Please do not assume that any post with a suggestion is a slam against anyone....it could be merely a suggestion.

The editors do not have any access to the programming of Sploofus. This is all being done ad hoc using the tools we have available at our disposal.

As for how labor-intensive the tabulation is, each puzzle thus far has received 30-55 votes.

Everyone who entered a puzzle will win at least one Wager Token. All of you who did so will be winners at some level.

We felt that the method of voting proposed above (users post their votes to the forums), while more transparent, would have some serious downside. Your vote could be more easily influenced by the opinions of others (and perhaps that of the author too). As it is, we hope most of you trust the integrity of the editing team. For goodness sake, we may know the identity of the puzzle that is leading the contest right now, but none of us, with the exception of the author's Platipuzzle editor (and the author of the puzzle, if he or she happens to be an editor), even knows who wrote it. Why would any of us have any motivation to influence the vote count? Me, I've personally stayed away from the counting of votes for puzzles in which I knew the author's identity!

We set up this contest because we thought many of you would enjoy it, and enjoy the opportunity to win one or more Wager Tokens. Do tell us after the contest ends whether or not we were correct in our assessments, and how you might like any such future contest to be run.

Pepperdoc there was a polling function on Sploofus 1.0 ( it hadn't been used in a long time but it was there). I don't see that it carried over to the 2.0 version, or if it did the editors don't have access to it apparently. I agree that a polling function to rate the WPs would be a heck of a lot easier than the current way it is being done, but if the PM system is working in tallying the votes, then it will have to suffice for now.

As to the accounts that conflict with mine.......3 of those are teachers that I got to try Sploofus.......I'm sure that the others may or may not also be connected with the school district because Sploofus is one of the sites that the district does NOT block because it is considered to be educational. Go figure......

AND I don't recall anyone saying that the word puzzles were rigged. If I seemed to imply that I certainly apologize because I certainly had no intention of doing so. This is another one of those threads where you can't look the person in the eye so you don't totally understand what he/she was/is trying to get across to begin with. It has already taken a bunch of twists and turns.
Carry on..........

I'll have to try that. I click on "my sploofus". Wordpuzzle is listed as a "friend" and I send a message that way. I send the message right away also.

Sploofunky (Editor)

Mon, 17th Nov '08 12:53 AM

We have recently discovered a problem with Bigbird's method of voting. For a few days, it was giving her the same error message reported by Lisap369 early in the contest, i.e. "that user is not available for messaging." Bigbird has now been sent a PM from Wordpuzzle, so this problem has been corrected and votes resubmitted.

To vote for word puzzles, please continue to use your PM link or whatever method does not result in an error message. If you experience any problem with voting, please submit a support ticket.